Beverage bottles are stored, transported and sometimes displayed in plastic reusable crates. Manufacturers attempt to implement several features or characteristics to efficiently transport and store both bottle-filled crates and empty crates. Two important features include bottle control within the crate and "nestability" of stacked empty crates.
Low-depth crates are often used to store and transport bottles. These low-depth crates have vertically disposed surfaces along an interior wall, columns or pylons to support bottles within the crate. The low-depth nature of the crates refers to the characteristic height of a crate that is lower than the height of the bottle. The height of the crates may vary, but generally the height of the crate wall is at least a third of the height of bottle. The low-depth nature of these crates allows a greater number of empty crates to be stacked on top of one another. In addition, the crates may provide visibility of labels for taller bottles.
Larger bottles, such as one-liter, two-liter or even three-liter bottles may pose problems for storing bottles in the low-depth crates. The low depth crates may not provide adequate support for the taller bottles when bottle-filled crates are stacked. In addition, the bottles may have a tendency to topple when bottles are removed. A full-depth crate may resolve some of these problems; however, such a full-depth crate should preferably be nestable to stack empty crates.